


Shot to the Heart

by elementalv



Category: due South
Genre: M/M, Team Whimsy, ds match
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-08
Updated: 2008-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elementalv/pseuds/elementalv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lather, rinse, repeat. And again. And again. And...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shot to the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to everyone on **ds_team_whimsy** who did a chat beta on this story and offered their thoughts and suggestions. Additional thanks to Zabira for taking one last look.

**March 31, 2005 x 2**

“I would like to come visit you,” Benny said. Ray blinked and shook his head at the strong feeling of déjà vu he’d just gotten. “Ray?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, sure. Come visit. It’s been a long time since I kayaked through the sewers.” And that was weird, too, because he could have sworn that he’d already said that to Benny, and just recently. But that didn’t make sense, because they hadn’t talked since February, and —

“Ray?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it all right?”

“Sure. Come visit. I already said to.”

“I meant Ray,” Benny said. “Is it all right if Ray comes along?”

His blood pressure shot way the hell up, and Ray’s vision started blacking out a little. “Absolutely not! No way in —”

And wait. He’d already had _that_ out with Benny, too. What the hell?

Benny started babbling something, and Ray went through the motions of listening, but not apologizing, because no way was he letting Kowalski under his roof again, no matter what Benny had to say about it. After a few more sentences, they hung up, and Ray leaned back in his seat to think about it.

They’d already had that talk, Ray was positive of it. They’d had it a couple of days ago, and when Ray pulled out his pocket calendar to look up the note he would have made, he found March 31, which was — blank. Clean as a whistle, in fact.

So was April 1, which was odd, because he remembered Stella calling to talk about selling the bowling alley, and he was sure he’d written down the details — even cursed a little because his pen left a blob of ink — but there was nothing there. And there was nothing on April 2, either, which was when he nearly decked Father Leo because of what he said about Benny and — and — and Kowalski? Yeah. Kowalski. Something about —

Shit.

Ray remembered arguing with Leo — who’d been a stuck up little snot back in parochial school and hadn’t changed much in the thirty-odd years since — about Benny and Kowalski and the fact that Leo told Ray he was going to hell for even thinking that — no. He absolutely didn’t want to go there again, but it was too late, because right after Ray came close to punching Leo out and told him (in a calm, firm and not at all homicidal tone of voice) that he would never, _ever_ think of doing that thing Leo accused him of, Ray exited the church (in a calm, firm and not at all panicked manner) and promptly got shot point blank in the chest by some idiot trying to rob a little old man.

He thought about it for a moment, and decided two things: one, that he had to be losing his mind if he could imagine shit like that, and two, that maybe it was time to take that vacation he’d been thinking of. The idea of dying and coming back to life three days earlier than when he bought the farm was stupid. Beyond stupid, really, because the universe didn’t operate like that and he _knew_ that. Knew it perfectly well, and if his hand shook a little as he wrote out the note about Benny calling, then no one but Ray was the wiser.

  


* * *

  


**April 1, 2005 x 2**

“All right, already,” Ray said, biting back as much of his impatience as possible. It wasn’t Stella’s fault he had such a good imagination that he could predict what she was about to say.

“I just want to be sure you’re okay with the asking price,” she said with far too much politeness. Ray was willing to bet anything she was grinding her teeth at him.

“I told you it’s fine.”

“Fine.” Stella took a deep breath, and Ray knew exactly what she was going to say to him, and he also knew she was going to piss him off.

Before she could say anything about Benny or Kowalski, he told her, “I gotta go. Send me the papers, okay?”

  


* * *

  


**April 2, 2005 x 2**

For a solid forty-eight hours, Ray managed to convince himself that he was experiencing nothing more than a weirdly extended kind of déjà vu, one brought on by the end of a very stressful month. That was all, that was it. Nothing more, time to move on, and hey, while he was at it, he would think about what to fix for dinner and _not_ think about the fact that he wasn’t all that surprised when Frannie called him in tears to tell him the Pope was dead.

“He was just so sweet,” Frannie said, sniffling.

“Jesus.”

“Don’t you dare swear at a time like this!”

“Come on, Frannie,” he wheedled.

“Ma wants us all in church tonight,” she said.

“Yeah, okay — wait.” Ray blinked, thinking about it. Not that he was willing to admit the Pope had already died once this week, because if he were, he would have to remember (again) just how pissed off he got at Leo for what he said about him and Benny and, God help him, Kowalski.

“Wait for what, Ray?”

“Tell Ma I want everyone over here tonight,” he said.

“I — what?”

“You heard me,” he said, snarling a little. So maybe it had been a while since he’d had everyone over for dinner. That didn’t mean she needed to sound like it was one of the signs of the apocalypse. Anyway, if the family was having dinner with him, then he wouldn’t be running out of the church and getting shot in the chest.

“Um. Okay.”

“Good. Anything else?”

“No.”

“Fine. Be here in two hours. I have to go pick up some more food.”

“But, Ray —”

He hung up before she could say anything else, and yeah, it was rude, but he was freaking out a little here, because he was acting like he knew what was going to happen, and that was wrong on too many levels to count.

The phone rang, and he was about to pick it up when he remembered who called the last time he hung up with Frannie. It rang a second time, and Ray slowly pulled his hand back. No way was he talking to Kowalski. Not after the last time.

Ray swallowed hard and walked out of the house, locking the door behind him. He was just rounding the corner to the driveway when he heard Frank Martelli yell, “Watch out!”

He had maybe a second, two at the most, to stare at the javelin headed straight at him, and Ray was amazed that he was able to notice the little bit of grass on the end of the point just before it went straight into his chest and killed him.

  


* * *

  


**March 31, 2005 x 3**

“I would like to come visit you,” Benny said. Ray blinked and stared at the phone. Hadn’t he just — “Ray?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, sure. Come visit. It’s been a long time since I —”

After a pause, Benny asked, “Since you what?”

_Kayaked through the sewers_, he thought, but he said, “Since I saw you.”

“And I, you.” Then Benny got whacked by the detail-stick and added, “Of course, it’s been exactly as long as it’s been since you saw me — at least I presume you haven’t seen me without me having seen you, so I suppose that was — well, that’s neither here nor there.”

“I understand,” he said softly. Ray ducked his head and smiled at his desk blotter. God, it had been too long since they’d done more than talk on the phone, and this thing with the repeating days, maybe Benny could figure it out for him. “You come visit soon, okay?”

“I’ll be happy to.” He cleared his throat kind of nervously, and Ray could just picture him running his finger around his collar. “Ray, I would like to bring Ray with me.”

His blood pressure shot up. How the hell had he forgotten _that_ part of the conversation? Must have been the javelin.

“No. No way.”

“But —”

“Not a chance in hell. I want to see you, but not if it means bringing —” There were so many ways he could finish that sentence, and a couple of those ways had already hurt Benny way more than Ray was willing to do again. “Just you. You can visit. I don’t want to see him.”

And if he didn’t see Kowalski with Benny, he could pretend the two of them weren’t together. If he could pretend the two of them weren’t together, then he could forget that thing with Kowalski. And if he could forget that thing with Kowalski, then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t have to try to figure out if he was more jealous of Benny or of Kowalski. There were probably at least a couple of guys in the world who could handle trying to figure that shit out, but Ray wasn’t one of them.

“Ray —” Benny sighed. “Very well. Just me.”

  


* * *

  


**April 1, 2005 x 6**

“... don’t see why you won’t at least talk to him, Ray.” She sounded pretty distressed over the whole thing, which was rich, because Ray didn’t think she was dying every few days the way he was.

“It’s complicated, Stella.” Complicated and fucked up, and he didn’t know why he was telling her this, except maybe a part of him was starting to figure out that it didn’t matter what he said, it was all going to be erased by tomorrow night anyway. In other words, _why not_ tell her? He swallowed hard and was about to explain, but his call waiting beeped at him, so instead, he told her, “I gotta go. We’ll talk later.”

  


* * *

  


**April 2, 2005 x 8**

Like clockwork, the phone rang exactly eighteen seconds after he hung up with Frannie. Ray glared at it and thought about maybe ignoring the call again, but the last six times he’d done that, he’d ended up dead within the hour. If it wasn’t Frank Martelli’s javelin, it was a random bolt of lightning or an out-of-control ice cream truck.

The phone rang a second time and then a third, and then Ray lurched forward to answer it, because he’d learned that Kowalski hung up after the fourth ring. “Yeah, what?”

“Listen, you asshole,” Kowalski began. Ray sank against the wall and slowly slid down it. He’d done the same thing the first time he’d answered Kowalski’s call “— about me, but I give a shit about —” and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why Kowalski’s voice could still hit him so hard. That wasn’t true. He knew exactly why Kowalski’s voice hit him so hard. “You got that?”

Ray blinked. Oh yeah. The rant. “Whatever.”

“Asshole.” And then Kowalski hung up, just like the first time, and just like the first time, Ray had to take a few minutes to get over that punched-in-the-gut feeling he had every time he talked to Kowalski. If nothing else, maybe this time, he’d survive the trip back from the store.

He did survive the trip to the store and back, but then Frannie got on his case about Kowalski, which was just wrong and probably explained why he ended up dead by way of one of her knitting needles.

As Frannie panicked and he sank into death, Ray decided the universe was an asshole.

  


* * *

  


**March 31, 2005 x 13**

“I would like to come visit you,” Benny said.

“Yeah, okay, but no Kowalski,” Ray said. There was something niggling at the back of his mind, something telling him that maybe the reason he kept dying and coming back had to do with Kowalski and Benny and him and this, this — thing — they absolutely didn’t have between each other, but he wasn’t willing to give in on this point. Not yet, and possibly not ever.

“I know —”

“Don’t,” Ray said. “I do not want to know what you do or do not know. Understand?”

“Don’t you think you’re —”

“Late for my next appointment? You’re completely right about that. See you on Sunday?”

“Ray —”

“Great. Sunday it is,” he said quickly. “Catch you later, Benny.”

When he hung up, Ray didn’t bother making a note in his calendar. He had yet to see Sunday morning, and he didn’t think he would see it in three days’ time.

  


* * *

  


**April 1, 2005 x 26**

Ray watched the ripples dissipate from where he’d thrown his cell phone into the lake. He didn’t feel much like talking to anyone, let alone Stella, and kind of thought he might be going a little nuts. Of course, who wouldn’t be, what with dying so many times and all?

He walked back to a bench and took a seat. It was chilly and windy, but it wasn’t like he was going to be around long enough to catch a cold, so he pulled out his notebook and started a list for the eighteenth time.

> _1\. The loop always starts with Benny’s phone call asking to visit.  
> 2\. Not talking to Stella about Kowalski doesn’t seem to kill me any faster.  
> 3\. Not answering Kowalski’s call on Saturday kills me within an hour if I don’t pick up the phone.  
> 4\. Answering Kowalski’s call buys me a couple of extra hours.  
> 5\. The universe hates me, and I am deeply, deeply fucked._

Ray looked at the list and sighed. Sooner or later, he was going to have to suck it up and actually talk to Kowalski instead of letting him yell, but for now, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. There was still other stuff to try, including telling Benny yes, it was okay to bring Kowalski along. It made him sick to his stomach to think of it, but not nearly as sick as the idea of having a conversation with Kowalski. Ray sighed again and stood up to go home.

He had just enough time before the baseball hit him in the chest to make a mental note not to blow Stella off completely the next time it was April 1.

  


* * *

  


**March 31, 2005 x 42**

“Aren’t you going to answer that, Detective?”

Ray looked back at his desk, then shrugged before flopping down on Welsh’s couch. “Nah. It’s just Benny.”

Welsh looked at him for a full minute before asking, “And you’re in such constant communication with the good Mountie that you don’t feel the need to speak with him now?”

“Nah. He’s calling to see if he can come visit on Sunday and bring Kowalski with him.” And that was the annoying thing, because for the last fifteen calls, he’d said it was okay to bring Kowalski along, but he still ended up dying on Saturday night. Maybe it was because after saying yes, Kowalski didn’t bother to call Ray on Saturday afternoon.

“And this is a call you’re avoiding because why?” Ray looked at Welsh. He didn’t think he would have any suggestions, but hell, Welsh had surprised them before, so why not now?

“You ever sleep with someone you shouldn’t have?”

Welsh frowned. “I thought you and Kowalski had long since moved past your little spat over the former Mrs. Kowalski.”

“No, I don’t mean her. I’m talking about him. Kowalski,” Ray said. It was a measure of just how tired he was of the whole mess that he didn’t even choke when he told Welsh. For that matter, it was a measure of just how far gone he was that he didn’t feel the slightest bit of sympathy for Welsh suddenly going gray in the face. “He showed up on my doorstep a few months ago with this whole song and dance about how him and Benny are done.” Ray straightened up and said, “Excuse me. He said they were ‘doneski.’ Who the hell talks like that?”

“Detective —” Welsh started sweating a little. A lot. He tried to loosen his tie as Ray kept talking.

“And who would be stupid enough to walk away from Benny? Even when I thought I was straight, I wouldn’t have kicked the guy out of my bed, and I sure as hell wouldn’t do it now. God. Benny. And Kowalski. Together, even.” Ray thought he might be getting a little too dreamy-eyed, so he scowled and continued, “So he shows up on my doorstep, and hell, I’m feeling a little raw about Stella, and the next thing I know, we’re both drunk off our asses and making out like a couple of teenagers.” Ray shifted a little at the memory. “Jesus, can he kiss.”

“Vecchio —”

“I mean, the guy kisses with his whole body, which shouldn’t be a surprise, the way he wears his heart on his sleeve. There isn’t a single part of you that doesn’t know it’s being kissed by Stanley-Fucking-Kowalski, and that’s a hell of a rush. I never thought I’d go for a guy, but what the hell? We were drunk, we’d both been dumped, so why not? Just a couple of guys out to fuck their misery away.”

“Vecchio —” Welsh pounded on the desk a couple of times, but Ray ignored him.

“I gotta tell you, sir, that Kowalski knows what he’s doing when it comes to sex. Don’t know if it’s inborn talent or if he learned it from Benny, but I never felt anything like that before.” Ray shifted again and reached down to adjust himself. “Nah. Must be natural talent, because Stella always said sex wasn’t the problem with them, and I have to agree with her on that one.”

Welsh made a strangled sound and slumped a little in his seat. Ray stood up and started pacing the office.

“I didn’t think it would mean anything afterward. A little stress relief by way of a blow job, you know? Turns out I was wrong, because it was the best sex of my life.” Ray stood at a window and watched the construction crew across the street. “But after the best sex of my life, you know what that asshole does the next morning?” Ray didn’t wait for an answer. “He wakes up stone cold sober and says how he has to go back to talk to Benny. Can you believe that? I have an epiphany about how I’m not all that straight, and the fucker runs off to Canada. Not that I blame Benny for that, because I don’t. No, that was all Kowalski’s fault.”

Ray paused to draw a breath and looked back at Welsh, who was unconscious, possibly dead, and said, “Oh, great! Now Kowalski is killing you, too. Could this day get any worse?”

At that moment, a piece of rebar came through Welsh’s window and struck Ray in the heart.

  


* * *

  


**March 31, 2005 x 43**

“I would like to come visit you,” Benny said. Ray made a mental note to never, _ever_ ask again if a day could get any worse, because rebar hurt like a son of a bitch when it went in, and since it didn’t catch his heart just right, he ended up taking a couple of hours to — “Ray? Are you there?”

“What? Oh yeah. I’m here.” Where else would he be? His life had turned into a hamster wheel, and he was beginning to think he’d never find a way out of this mess.

“Ray, I — Are you all right?”

“Sure, fine, Benny.” He’d kill himself if he thought it would do any good, but that would just put him back at the start again. At least with a few days between loops, he had a little variety. Not much, but some. Enough to keep from going completely bonkers, he thought. He hoped.

“Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t sound fine.”

Ray shook his head and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. You wanted to come visit?”

“I — Yes, actually.”

“Sure. Come on by. It’ll be nice to see you.” Really, it would be great to see Benny, and Ray had an idea. “How about Saturday? Can you come on Saturday?”

“I’m afraid don’t believe that will be possible,” Benny said.

“Oh. A shame.”

“Indeed, though that brings me to my next request. I would like to bring Ray with me, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t know, Benny. I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Clearly it wasn’t, because saying yes didn’t do a damn thing to get him out of this freakish time loop. Sure, it was nice not having to talk to Kowalski on Saturday afternoon, but he’d come to the conclusion that if he didn’t talk to Kowalski on Saturday afternoon, the way he got killed was practically straight out of Looney Tunes. Bad enough he had to keep dying, but seriously, getting impaled by a violin bow not once, but twice, was going a little too far.

“I think you’re mistaken.”

“Gotta disagree with you there,” Ray said morosely.

“I know what happened between you and Ray,” Benny said abruptly, and if that wasn’t a shot to the heart, Ray didn’t know what was. While he sat there trying to come up with something to say — anything to make it sound not as horrible as it was — Benny continued, “I think it’s important for the three of us to sit down and talk about it.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“On the contrary. I think there is definitely something for the three of us to discuss,” Benny said in a voice that was way too — something. Something that made Ray think maybe Leo was right about Ray going to hell for the way he saw Benny and Kowalski and himself.

“Look, I gotta go. Call me when you know what time you’ll be here.”

For a full minute, Ray sat there, wondering if he was about to die. When he didn’t, he let out a shaky breath and finished out the rest of the day.

  


* * *

  


**April 1, 2005 x 43**

“I’ll send the paperwork overnight express,” she said, and then she paused.

It was a significant pause, and the last forty-odd times she’d hit that pause, Ray had made his excuses and gotten off the phone. The only thing that kept him on the line this time was morbid curiosity. It was obvious she knew something was up with Kowalski and him, and after Benny’s little announcement the day before, he wanted to know what she knew. He could handle a little humiliation, especially if it was only going to last the two days it would take to get back to March 31.

“Was there something else?” He hoped like hell he sounded casual, but he had a feeling he might have missed the mark.

“I wanted to talk to you about Ray,” she said in a rush.

“What’s to talk about?” It came out a little higher pitched than he liked.

“I know —”

“You _know_? He _told_ you? He told _you_?” Ray started breathing a little faster. “Jesus Christ! Is there anyone he _didn’t_ tell?”

“Ray —”

“It was just sex!” Yeah, there was full-on panic in his voice.

“What?”

“And it was only that one night. He told me him and Benny were on the outs. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything, but it did, and then he went running back to Canada the next day,” Ray said. He was starting to hyperventilate, and someone, Huey, slapped a paper bag on the desk in front of him. Ray looked around and saw everyone in the bullpen staring at him, and the only thing that kept him from throwing himself off the roof right then was the sure and certain knowledge that in two days, they wouldn’t know a damn thing.

“Ray!”

Stella’s voice cut through Ray’s mortification, and he muttered, “Christ.”

“You still with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, number one, I didn’t know that you and Ray —” She made a strangled noise. “— Slept together, and trust me, I didn’t _want_ to know.”

It was Ray’s turn for making a strangled noise, because if he was telling Stella too much, she was way too calm and collected about it, and that wasn’t fair.

“But now that I _do_ know, I have to tell you, that what you describe doesn’t sound like him. Have you asked him what happened?”

“What? Hell no! He ran out on me!” At this point, Ray didn’t give a damn if he sounded like an outraged virgin. He was entitled to it.

“You need to talk to him,” she said, all reasonable and adult-like. At that moment, Ray hated her.

“No, I don’t.”

“Look, even if things don’t work out between you —”

“He’s with Benny. In _Canada_.”

“— You still need closure.”

“Closure.”

“Closure,” she said firmly. “I’m worried about you, Ray. You shouldn’t be alone.” He started squawking a little, being unable to form words, but she talked right over him. “Just because it didn’t work out with you and me, you shouldn’t give up on finding someone. You have a good heart, Ray. You need to share it.”

A good heart. That was a laugh. Over the last how-many months, his heart had been battered and bruised and, on one memorable occasion, blown up. It kept breaking on him, and he kept dying of it, and now Stella expected him to go out and risk it on something scarier than a bullet?

“I suck at love.”

“You don’t,” she said, her voice as gentle as anything. “You really don’t suck at it at all. Ray doesn’t either.”

“I told you, he’s with Benny.”

“You never know — maybe Fraser doesn’t suck at it,” she said.

Wait. “What?”

“Look, I have to go. Think about what I said, okay?”

“Stella!”

He was answered with a click and the silence of a dead line, which, he reflected bitterly, was way more appropriate than she would ever know.

  


* * *

  


**April 2, 2005 x 43**

Ray picked up Kowalski’s call and said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea, you coming here.”

There was a pause. “We gotta talk.”

“I think you said everything when you left the next day.” Ray truly hoped he didn’t sound pathetic, because he would much rather come off sounding cool and collected and in charge of his own life and not pining after Kowalski for a single minute.

“Yeah, I was an idiot, but not the way you think.”

“Whatever. It’s still not a good idea for you to come here,” Ray told him. And he meant that with all his heart, because he wasn’t sure he could handle seeing Kowalski and Benny together and happy. It would be worse than the rebar.

“Tough shit. Me and Fraser will be there tomorrow to talk to you.”

“Why bother?”

Kowalski laughed — which was totally inappropriate as far as Ray was concerned, as was the way his dick twitched at the sound — and said, “If you still haven’t figured it out when we get there, I’ll draw you a picture. See you tomorrow, Vecchio.”

Ray would have argued the point, but Kowalski had already hung up. He fretted about it for maybe two seconds then shrugged. Wasn’t like it was actually going to happen, and he still had to get food for dinner.

~*~*~

It was after ten by the time everyone left, which struck Ray as a little odd. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten through a meal with them without dying first, and he thought maybe, if nothing else, talking to Benny and Kowalski had shaken things up a little.

He was just getting ready to turn in when the door buzzer rang, and that was something new, too, and he got a chill down his spine and a kick of acid in his stomach, because there were too many new things happening. Ray thought about not answering the door, but then he thought about dying.

Again.

“Open up, Vecchio! We know you’re in there.”

The hell of it was he couldn’t decide if opening the door would be worse than dying or just as bad as dying. No way could it be better than dying, not with Kowalski and —

“Ray, please open the door.”

— Benny out there. Jesus.

Ray took a couple of deep breaths and then opened the door just as Kowalski started pounding on it. He had the brief, but intense pleasure of watching Kowalski stumble across the threshold and then a not-so-brief moment of intense — something — when Kowalski caught himself by hanging onto Ray. Tightly. And closely. And then Benny was right there, making like an octopus.

Kowalski’s teeth and tongue collided with Ray’s, and Ray found himself on the verge of humping Kowalski’s leg. Or maybe it was Benny’s leg. Ray couldn’t really tell at this point. All he knew was that he really, really wanted to get away from both men but without losing one inch of contact.

He was fucked.

“Hey, Vecchio,” Ray murmured into his ear. “Missed you.”

Ray swallowed hard and tried to lean away. He didn’t succeed, but that was probably because he didn’t try very hard.

“Shouldn’t have left, then, huh?” That couldn’t be his voice, but Ray had a sick feeling that yes, he sounded breathy and kind of turned on.

“He had to, Ray.” Benny must have decided to claim Ray’s other ear, because now he could hear the two of them breathing in stereo. “If he hadn’t, it was entirely possible we would have missed this.”

“What this?” Ray’s hips hadn’t stopped moving since Kowalski did that thing with his neck, and it was more than a little embarrassing. He was acting like he hadn’t gotten laid in months, when — wait. He _hadn’t_ gotten laid in months. No wonder he was doing the swivel hip thing.

“Us this. Moron.”

Ray would have objected, because a guy who survived Vegas _and_ Florida was anything but a moron. The problem was that Kowalski was doing that thing with his lips and teeth and tongue and Ray’s neck again. And then Benny was doing something with his hands that Ray couldn’t quite figure out, but it sure as hell felt good.

“But —” Ray took a quick breath and tried again. “The hell?”

At that, Kowalski leaned back a little, which, Ray found out almost immediately, was to give him enough room to thwack Ray on the back of the head. Quick as anything, Benny grabbed Kowalski’s wrist before he could thwack Ray again and said, “Be nice.”

“I _am_ being nice. Haven’t tied him up to drag him out to the car, have I?”

Ray started struggling a little at that, and Benny let him go, which was either really great or really bad; Ray couldn’t figure out which. But he did know this was all kinds of insane. “This is insane. What the hell are you two up to?”

Kowalski looked like he wanted to get violent again, but Benny stepped in between them and said, “I think you’ve misunderstood Ray’s behavior for too long, Ray.”

“Not much to misunderstand about him running back to you after he — we —” Ray stopped for a minute, because it still hurt like a son of a bitch to remember that morning.

Benny gave Kowalski one of his significant looks, and Kowalski actually blushed. “Perhaps now would be a good idea to explain?”

“I, uh. It was. Um.”

Christ. Kowalski sucked at this, and the fact of that made Ray feel unexpectedly better. He interrupted with, “Benny, what the hell is he trying to say?”

“That it occurred to him that the three of us together would be far more successful than Ray and I alone have been.”

At that, Ray sat down. “Oh.”

  


* * *

  


**April 3, 2005 x 1**

Ray woke up, disoriented and way too warm, which didn’t make sense. Neither did the arm holding him down, because — “Oh, shit.”

That was Kowalski in front of him, and which meant Benny was behind him, and that was something totally new. Ray heaved himself up and over to Kowalski to grab for his watch on the nightstand, ignoring Kowalski’s muttered threats. He blinked a couple of times and said, “Finally!” when he saw the little APR 03 in the date window.

It was another seven seconds before the full horror of his situation to crash down on Ray, because it took that long to remember his conversation with Stella — his _loud_ conversation with Stella — on Friday, when everyone in the bullpen — and possibly everyone in the building — heard him outing himself.

“God, no.” Ray thought he was going to be sick.

Then Kowalski woke up and yanked Ray down for a kiss, a kiss that involved a lot of tongue and morning mouth and Kowalski-elbows jabbing Ray in the ribs. It was uncomfortable, impossible and way too good to be true, so Ray struggled a little until Benny spoke up and said, “It’s no use, Ray. Ray is very fond of good-morning kisses. You’ll become accustomed to his quirks in fairly short order.”

He tried to answer, but Kowalski wasn’t done polishing his back teeth, and anyway, Benny didn’t seem to need any kind of response, so Ray melted a little. When Benny leaned in to get some of the action, Ray melted the rest of the way. For once, his brain and panic both shut off at the same time, and he’d think about why later on. Right then, he just accepted the comfort and pleasure of the morning.


End file.
